Nationally, we are seeing a lot of change afoot on issues surrounding emissions and climate change, but at the state and regional levels we are largely seeing a continuation of standing policies. The following is a quick rundown of some of the news you may have been seeing about the attempt to overturn the Clean Air Act itself, or alternatively, to rescind EPA waivers in California - both of which could impact the Massachusetts’ Advanced Clean Trucks Rule, among other environmental policies.
Topics: EPA, Climate Change, clean air act, Trump Administration, Inflation Reduction Act, CARB, ACT
First - a reminder - Tariffs are (as of writing) still set to kick in this weekend on all imports from Mexico and Canada, and thus far they do not exempt oil imports from Canada, which could impact New England over the next several weeks, barring updates. We won't know what, if any, impacts there will be until early next week, most likely. Petitions are pending to exempt oil imports from the tariffs but there has not been any publicly confirmed change on that by the Administration as of Friday afternoon. Additionally, there are looming questions about price impacts on electricity in Northern New England that is Canadian sourced and whether that would be subject to the same 25% tariff.
Topics: EPA, Climate Change, tariff, Trump Administration, Biden Administration, paris accord, offshore wind, ev
MassDEP adopted the CARB (California Air Resources Board) Heavy Duty Omnibus and Advanced Clean Truck Regulations (aka 310 CMR 7.40) December 2021, along with several other States. The bill took effect January 1, 2025.
Topics: EPA, Massachusetts, Carbon Emissions, net-zero, decarbonization, CARB, ZEV
Topics: EPA, Carbon Emissions, railcar regulations, renewable energy, Biden Administration, decarbonization
As we have been discussing, the US National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization breaks the Transportation sector into seven categories, each of which has its own targets for emission reduction/elimination, and strategies for how those declines in emissions will be achieved. The next category addressed in the Blueprint by emissions % is Off-Road Vehicles and Mobile Equipment.
The Off-Road Vehicles and Mobil Equipment segment includes a LOT, from heavy mine drilling equipment and excavators to dirt bikes and lawn mowers. The off-road segment is accountable for approximately 10% of emissions, but where 79% of the segment uses diesel, the changes that would be applicable to the medium and heavy duty (on road) sector would carry over fairly cleanly to the off-road sector, which is why they make sense to address in tandem. We saw a similar approach to this with the transition to ultra low sulfur diesel – the initial priority was on road vehicles, as they are more uniform in fuel technology requirements and also contribute more on emissions. Once the tech is there for on-road, its fairly simple to adopt it down into the off-road sector for diesel fueled equipment.
Topics: EPA, Carbon Emissions, Biden Administration, decarbonization
As we have been discussing, the US National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization breaks the Transportation sector into seven categories, each of which has its own targets for emission reduction/elimination, and strategies for how those declines in emissions will be achieved. The second segment by emission % is Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles.
Topics: EPA, Carbon Emissions, Emissions, Biden Administration, paris accord, decarbonization
The US National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization splits the Transportation sector into seven categories of focus: Light-Duty Vehicles, Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles, Off-Road, Rail, Maritime, Aviation, and Pipelines. We will discuss the major items involved in each of these, from largest % of carbon share to least, starting with Light Duty Vehicles.
Light-Duty Vehicles produce 49% of current transportation emissions (of note, for the purposes of the Blueprint “current” refers to 2019 levels due to the pandemic and related shutdowns making 2020 & 2021 data unreliable/useless).
Topics: EV Charger, EPA, Carbon Emissions, Emissions, Biden Administration, ev, DOT, decarbonization
January 10th, 2023 the Biden Administration released the US National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization.
Topics: EPA, Climate Change, Carbon Emissions, DOT, decarbonization
Yesterday (November 30th) the EPA finalized renewable volume obligations for the RFS for 2018 and the RVO levels for 2019.
Topics: EPA Mandate, RINs, Biofuels, Cellulosic Ethanol, EPA, RFS
